being small and land abundant, those soils, alone, are cultivated whose properties fit them for yielding the largest return to labor -a given quantity of effort being then rewarded with a hundred quarters of corn.

Second: That, land becoming less abundant as population increases in density, there arises a necessity for cultivating less fertile soils-resort being then had to those of second, third, and fourth quality, yielding respectively ninety, eighty, and seventy quarters to a similar amount of effort.

Third That, with the growing necessity for thus applying labor less productively, rent arises - the owner of No. 1 being enabled to demand and to obtain ten quarters, when resort is had to No. 2-twenty when No. 3 is brought into use- and thirty when it becomes necessary to cultivate No. 4.

Fourth That, the proportion of the landlord tends, thus, steadily to increase, as the productiveness of labor decreasesthe division being as follows:

At the first period, when No. 1 alone is cultivated....... 100 100

Total. Labor. Rent.

00

-there being, thus, a tendency towards the ultimate absorption of the whole produce by the owner of the land, and towards a steadily increasing inequality of condition-the power of the laborer to consume the commodities he produces steadily diminishing, and that of the land-owner to claim them, as rent, as steadily increasing.

Fifth That this tendency towards a diminution in the return to labor, and towards an increase of the landlord's proportion, is found in the ratio of the growth of population—and most existing where population increases with most rapidity; but is, however, in a certain degree, counteracted by increase of wealth— producing improvement of cultivation.

Sixth That every such improvement tends to retard the growth of rent, while every obstacle to improvement tends to increase that growth; and that, as a necessary consequence, the interests

of the land-owner and laborer are always in opposition-rent rising as labour falls, and labor falling as rent rises.*

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§ 3. The whole system, thus placed before the reader, rests upon the assumption that early cultivation commences on the richest soils an idea that would not have been propounded by Mr. Ricardo, had he ever had the opportunity to study the movements of early settlers, who are always poor; or had he reflected, even in his closet, upon the fact, that rich soils are found in the river-bottoms-requiring, therefore, great and combined effort before they can be cleared, drained, and fitted for cultivation. That the facts are otherwise that the work of cultivation has, invariably, commenced on the poorer soils—and, that it is only with the growth of wealth and population, the richer ones have been reduced to cultivation has been already shown; and having, thus, proved that the theory has no foundation on which to rest, it might here be left to pass, in company with thousands of others equally destitute of truth, into the oblivion it so richly merits. Being, however, very plausible, and having, therefore, obtained a strong hold on the public mind, it seems to claim a further examination - having for its object an

* That the reader may satisfy himself that the above is a fair statement of this celebrated theory, it is here given in the author's own words:"With every step in the progress of population, which shall oblige a country to have recourse to land of a worse quality to enable it to raise its supply of food, rent on all the more fertile land will rise.

Thus, suppose land— No. 1, 2, 3-to yield, with an equal employment of capital and labor, a net produce of 100, 90, and 80 quarters of corn. In a new country, where there is an abundance of fertile land compared with the population, and where, therefore, it is only necessary to cultivate No. 1, the whole net produce will belong to the cultivator, and will be the profits of the stock which he advances. As soon as population had so far increased as to make it necessary to cultivate No. 2, from which 90 quarters only can be obtained, after supporting the laborers, rent would commence on No. 1; for either there must be two rates of profit of an agricultural capital, or 10 quarters, or the value of 10 quarters, must be withdrawn from the produce of No. 1 for some other purpose. Whether the proprietor of the land, or some other person, cultivate No. 1, these 10 quarters would equally constitute rent; for the cultivator of No. 2 would get the same result from his capital, whether he cultivated No. 1, paying 10 quarters for rent, or continued to cultivate No. 2, paying no rent. In the same manner, it might be shown that when No. 3 is brought into cultivation, the rent of No. 2 must be 10 quarters, or the value of 10 quarters, whilst the rent of No. 1 would rise to 20 quarters; for the cultivator of No. 3 would have the same profits, whether he paid 20 quarters for the rent of No. 1, 10 quarters for the rent of No. 2, or cultivated No. 3 free of all rent."-RICARDO: Political Economy, chap. ii.

exposition of the many fallacies embraced in the above deductions from what was supposed by Mr. Ricardo to be the one great and fundamental truth.*

First among them, is the assertion, that, with increase of numbers, there arises a necessity for resorting to machinery of inferior power-yielding less and less in return to labor. Were it true, that man did commence with the richer soils, then would this proposition be also true increase of population thus bringing with it a decline of human power, and man becoming, more and more, nature's victim. Beginning, on the contrary, with the poorer soils, he passes gradually towards the besteach successive step being accompanied by increase of power to select the soils best fitted for his purposes. Becoming, gradually, master of nature and of himself, he takes the light sand or the heavy marl- the clay or the loam. the iron or the coalthe hill-top or the river-bottom the superficial or the profound as the one or the other may appear most calculated to minister to his present wants, and aid him in the search for further power. Increasing numbers producing necessity, the standard of man must fall, and he must sink further towards the level of that mere animal which constitutes the subject treated of in modern political science. Giving him, on the contrary,

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Among the earliest and most distinguished of the advocates of Mr. Ricardo's doctrines, was the author of the Templar's Dialogues. In a more recent work by the same author, we find the following passage:

"The tendencies of a natural law like that of rent it is always right to expose, and Ricardo first did expose them. Others had discovered the law: he first applied his sagacious sense to its consequences upon profits, wages, price; and through them upon universal economy. That was right: for that we are irredeemably his debtors. But it was not right to keep studiously out of sight that eternal counter-movement which tends, by an equivalent agency, to redress the disturbed balance. This concealment has had the effect of introducing marvels into a severe science; since else, what other than a miracle is it that rent has not long since absorbed the whole landed produce a result to which it so manifestly tends? *** Our own social system seems to harbor within itself the germ of ruin. Either we must destroy rent, i. e., that which causes rent, or rent will destroy us," &c.Logic of Political Economy, p. 190.

Mr. Ricardo taught that, as population increased, the return to labor diminished, and the power of accumulation became less. Mr. De Quincey would have had him teach that, as population increased, the power of accumulation also increased, and that, by aid of the capital accumulated, the return to labor increased. Mr. Ricardo did not conceal this. He did not see it. Mr. De Quincey does see it; and a very little reflection would satisfy him that the facts and the theory are totally inconsistent with each other.

power, the standard must rise towards the level of the true MAN -feeding, clothing, and lodging himself better-acting betterthinking better-and exercising, in relation to all the actions of his life, a volition increasing with every stage in the growth of his control over the material world. Which of these two classes of phenomena it is, that has been presented in all advancing countries, we may now examine.

The total population of England and Wales, in the fourteenth century, did not exceed 2,500,000. Fertile lands aboundedwaiting appropriation at the hands of man. The poor ones were, however, cultivated, with small return to labor-six to eight bushels of wheat to an acre of land, being then regarded as an average crop. The numbers of the people are now seven times greater, and the land in cultivation is at least ten times more-embracing all the poor soils upon which a growing necessity would have compelled a waste of labor; and yet, the average yield per acre, estimating green crops as beef and mutton, and looking to the vast yield of potatoes and other articles of vegetable food, has increased in a ratio almost equalling that of the acres cultivated. Famines were then frequent and severe; whereas, they have now ceased to be regarded as among the things of possible occurrence-regularity of supply having grown with increase in the regularity of demand.*

In "the good old times" of "merrie England," when fertile land was abundant and people were few in number, the Saxon hogs roamed the woods-living upon acorns produced from oaks that their owner lacked the means to fell. Later, half-starved sheep fed upon lands incapable of yielding grain, but cows and oxen were few -the fine rich meadow being covered with wood, or so saturated with moisture as to be wholly useless. Maids of honor then luxuriated on bacon, and laborers banqueted upon "the strength of water-gruel," as did, but seventy years since, many of the people of northern counties, that now present to view the finest farms in England-the rich soils composing which,

Let any one compare the state of this or any other European country 500, or 100 years ago, and he will be satisfied that prodigious advances have been made; that the means of subsistence have increased much more rapidly than the population; and that the laboring classes are now generally in the possession of conveniences and luxuries that were formerly not enjoyed, even by the richest lords."- MCCULLOCH.

were then awaiting the growth of population and of wealth. A piece of fat pork was, in those days, an article of luxury rarely to be found on the table of the laborer. Even within a century, the bread consumed by a large portion of the people was made of barley, rye, and oats-the consumption of wheat being altogether limited to the rich. It is now in universal use; although, so recently as 1727, an eight-acre field of it, near Edinburgh, was deemed a curiosity. The state of things that there existed, is an index to that found in the Lothians, and in various counties of the north of England, where may now be seen the most prosperous agriculture. At that time, men cultivated, not the best soils, but those they could cultivate, leaving the rich ones for their successors - doing in this what is being now, every day, done by the settlers of western prairies.

While the wheaten loaf has thus succeeded the compound of barley, rye, and acorns, once denominated bread, and supposed to afford more nourishment, because of remaining longer in the stomach, and being less easily digested-an idea repeated in the present day by the poor Irish peasant, who prefers the miserable potato called the lumper, because of its having, as he says, a bone in it-beef and mutton have succeeded the salt herring on the table of the artisan and laborer, and the mast-fed bacon on that of the landlord. Within a century, the average weight of cattle has risen from 370 to 800 pounds, and that of sheep from 28 to 80 pounds-the number consumed having increased more rapidly, even, than the weight. The quantity of wool, of hides, and of other materials for manufactures of various kinds, is immense; and yet the population wholly dependent on the labors of the field is certainly not thrice greater than it was in the days. of the Plantagenets. The return to labor has, therefore, largely increased as, with increased numbers, man has acquired power over the various soils, then too deep, or too distant, to be cultivated with the means at his command; but now required for the supply of the greatly increased and more prosperous population.

The history of France in the Middle Ages, when land abounded and men were few in number, is but a record of an almost unceasing succession of famines. As late as the middle of the fifteenth century, the condition of the laborers of that country was thus described by Fortescue :—